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Editorial: Ethnic cleansing in Baghdad hits Christians

By The Denver Post, Digital First Media

Updated:
12/27/2013 12:53:33 PM EST

Iraqi Christians attend a Christmas mass at the Mother Teresa Catholic Church in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, Iraq. Militants on Wednesday launched two separate attacks against Christians in Baghdad, killing more than a dozen people. (Nabil al-Jurani/Associated Press)

The saddest Christmas story this year was undoubtedly the bombing of a church service Wednesday in Baghdad, which killed 11 and injured many more. It seems terrorists have not given up their perverse goal of driving the Christian community either underground or out of the country.

In a telling reminder of how intimidating the atmosphere has become, The New York Times reported this week that “many Christians living in Baghdad and in other provinces traveled in recent days to the Iraqi Kurdistan region to celebrate Christmas and the new year, fearing just this sort of attack.”

Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, hundreds of thousands of Christians have fled the country, mostly out of fear. And the remnant that remains continues t0 reel from the sort of bigoted body blows that struck those churchgoers in Baghdad.